Hilariously imagined text conversations—the passive aggressive, the clever, and the strange—from classic and modern literary figures, from Scarlett O’Hara to Jessica Wakefield
Mallory Ortberg, the co-creator of the cult-favorite website The Toast, presents this whimsical collection of hysterical text conversations from your favorite literary characters. Everyone knows that if Scarlett O’Hara had an unlimited text-and-data plan, she’d constantly try to tempt Ashley away from Melanie with suggestive messages. If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps. And Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving, she’d text you to pick her up after she totaled her car. Based on the popular web-feature, Texts from Jane Eyre is a witty, irreverent mashup that brings the characters from your favorite books into the twenty-first century.

The book is presented today in New York:

Texts from Jane Eyre: Mallory Ortberg in Conversation with Rachel FershleiserTuesday, November 4, 2014at 7:00PM
Celebrate the launch of Texts from Jane Eyre with author Mallory Ortberg; Mallory will be in conversation with Tumblr's Rachel Fershleiser.
Mallory Ortberg’s Texts from Jane Eyre And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters (Henry Holt; on sale: November 4, 2014) is a laugh-out-loud collection of imagined text conversations, featuring all the characters you know and love (but like you’ve never heard them before).
When Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre in 1847, more than a century before the advent of cell phones, the protagonist Jane had to endure the agony of a face-to-face confrontation with St. John in order to reject his romantic invitation to India. In the brilliant imagination of Mallory Ortberg, their awkward exchange is amplified with cell phones and when re-written via text, Jane’s obvious discomfort and St. John’s woeful ignorance are brought to life in a way that’s both fresh and familiar.
Ortberg masterfully applies this method to characters across the canon, from Plato and the Wife of Bath to Nancy Drew and Ron Weasley (and everyone in between), zeroing in on character flaws and magnifying them to great comedic effect. If Scarlett O’Hara had an unlimited data plan, she’d try to tempt Ashley away from Melanie with suggestive messages. Hamlet would bicker with his mother. Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving, she’d text you to pick her up after she totals her car. Cathy and Heathcliff would send impassioned messages back and forth for hours. And, of course, Mrs. Bennett would still try to fix her daughters up with eligible suitors.
Witty and irreverent, Texts from Jane Eyre is a must-read for any book lover and brings the characters from your favorite books into the twenty-first century.